TENSE AS EVER

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20907, 6 October 1942, Page 5

TENSE AS EVER

STALINGRAD FIGHT FTEW AXIS GAINS RED TACTICS SUCCEED STRAWS IN THE WIND ‘i ■ (By- Telegraph —Press Asan. —Copyright,) (3 p=m.) LONDON, Oct. 4. Tne situation at Stalingrad remains as tense as ever, 'but two reports during the week-end suggest' that the Russians’ "grinding down” plan is beginning to bear fruit. The flow of Axis reinforcements has 'not diminished, but the quality is beginning -to fall. . ' Prisoners taken in the past few days in street fighting, which is -highly "specialised warfare requiring sound- training, Include sappers acting hs shoe I? troops. The Russians also report that the enemy made a disorderly retreat on another sector. Sevtfraf huhdrea; famtely sill-rendered. There is no disposition to overemphasise these “straps in the wind,” but they "coincide with a week-end in whieh“the Axis forces have made the least - progress since the battle for Stalingfad began. Thef' correspondent in Moscow pressure.' " A collapse on any Single sector would' imperil 'the whole Russian'position, 'while the’Slightest German'faltering would unleash the Russians who "are infused With the fighting spirit and eager to press forward from harrow confines. Russians Regain Ground In ilmistnhg a' Rumanian regiment south of Stalingrad, the Russians advanced oriva wide front and regained ground'* they had lost on Friday. They-repulsed several counter-attacks and. destroyed many dozens of tanks. The Germans are bitterly contesting 'foot nprth-w’est of Stalingrad, WherO‘ the Russians in hours advanced 200. yards in one sector, taking the first line of German trenches only after many days of fierce hammeriittf. -in which r they killed'looo Germans and destroyed 25 tanks. Foiled in their attempts to drive along the Black Sea coast south of Novorossisk; the Germans are , attempting to strike towards the Black Sea- from the Kuban Basin thus cut-ting-off the Russians south of Novorossisk. Major engagements are occurring on the southern edge of the Kuban Basin in the wooded Caucasian foothills. German arson crews are attempting to smoke out the Russians by setting flrb to forests. Dense clouds of smoke are drifting oventhe combatants. The Luftwaffe is making as many as 300 sorties a day, mostly against Russian artillery, which again is the backbone of the defence. The forests and hilly terrain force the German tanks to keep to the reads, * where they are frequently sitting shots for the Russian guns. . A German communique claims that the Geririsins south of Terek captured the strongly fortified towns of Elchotovo and Verchni.